Five education groups from Connecticut have united to release a guidance containing six principles intended to help the state’s legislators implement a fair funding formula for the benefit of all public school students living in the state.

For years, representatives of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, the Connecticut Association of Schools and the Connecticut Council for Education Reform have said the state’s funding of education is inequitable, an assertion supported by the recent ruling of Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher in CCJEF v. Rell.

The five organizations involved, include; the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (CABE), the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents (CAPSS), the Connecticut Association of Schools (CAS), the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN), and the Connecticut Council for Education Reform (CCER).

The group of organizations emphasized that they weren’t proposing a specific formula, instead, today, they released a joint statement offering six guiding core principles they hope lawmakers should use as a roadmap for developing a new funding system…

The Mastery Examination Task Force was comprised of four members from the State Department of Education including the Commissioner herself as chair, two representatives from the State Board of Education, two from the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, two from the CT Association of Public School Superintendents, two from the CT Association of Schools (which oversees The Principal’s Center), three from the CT Parent Teacher Association, and two chosen at-large by the Commissioner: the Executive Director of the CT Council for Education Reform and a Southern Connecticut State University professor with a math/technology background. Another appointed education leader who joined the task force after it had started represented the State Board of Regents for Higher Education. And, four representatives from the two professional teacher organizations were included on the task force.

By my calculation, task force members predisposed to maintaining (with some minor tweaks) the current statewide student assessment protocol outnumbered the teacher representatives, 18 to four.

Jeffrey A. Villar, executive director of the Connecticut Council for Education Reform, called for a balance between privacy and the public’s interest, saying, “There’s a certain level of privacy you give up when you sign on as a superintendent,” he said.

He’s right.

Legislators must align the evaluation process with the spirit of open government.

Jeffrey A. Villar, executive director of the Connecticut Council for Education Reform, said he is in the process of comparing Connecticut’s laws regarding superintendency to those in other states, to possibly develop a policy recommendation for legislators.

Villar said there needs to be a balance between maintaining employee privacy and acting in the public’s interest.

“A town does have a right to know, is the superintendent hitting the targets as established by the board [and] how does the board feel about the superintendent’s performance … That’s appropriate for a public official. There’s a certain level of privacy you give up when you sign on as a superintendent,” he said.

According to the Connecticut Council for Education Reform, while the number of students may decline, the administrative costs associated with running the schools continues to increase — something state Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney thinks must be considered.

According to the Connecticut Council for Education Reform, while the number of students may decline, the administrative costs associated with running the schools continues to increase — something state Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney thinks must be considered.

Jeffrey Villar, executive director of the Connecticut Council for Education Reform, an advocacy group that doesn’t support increasing school spending, said the state should change how it allocates money between wealthy and low-income school districts to make it fairer. But coming up with a system that doesn’t reduce funding for wealthier districts will be tough as the state faces a $1.5 billion deficit for the coming fiscal year that begins in July, he said. “I think we face dramatic obstacles in resolving the issue,” Mr. Villar said.